This needed to happen. It was the worst kept secret around the league that Laviolette was on the shortest leash in the league coming in...many believed he should have been canned in the offseason. Players love Craig Berube, though I'm unsure what kind of coach he really is...he has 86 games of HC exp. at the AHL level, the rest of his time he was an assistant.

Flyers played some really uninspired hockey so far this year. Last night against Carolina was really lackadasical...I'm not sure I've seen a 3-game firing in the modern era before...Savard got four games in Chicago I think, we fired Hlinka after four in 2001 or 02, right? Demers only lasted four games into the season following the Roy trade back in '96...

mikey287 wrote:This needed to happen. It was the worst kept secret around the league that Laviolette was on the shortest leash in the league coming in...many believed he should have been canned in the offseason. Players love Craig Berube, though I'm unsure what kind of coach he really is...he has 86 games of HC exp. at the AHL level, the rest of his time he was an assistant.

Flyers played some really uninspired hockey so far this year. Last night against Carolina was really lackadasical...I'm not sure I've seen a 3-game firing in the modern era before...Savard got four games in Chicago I think, we fired Hlinka after four in 2001 or 02, right? Demers only lasted four games into the season following the Roy trade back in '96...

Mikey, I get your point about uninspired play, but 4% of the way into the season?How many teams has Berube taken to the Cup Finals? How many has he won with?Lavy will be back. The Pens should hire him and make a position for him, he's got a great hockey mind.

Re: Melrose, I think it was 16 games ("Stamkos isn't ready"). That's one of the shortest from the time of a hiring.

EPP, it's just mistimed. It needed to be done last year or in the offseason. This is how they played most of late last year too...same unwavering ignorance of the fact that no d-man can move the puck to their best player, no real concentrated work rate, and they ran their goalie into the ground by having him play like 30 consecutive games (not that he had much of a choice because he didn't have an NHL caliber backup).

They finally got a guy that can move the puck forward to 28 (Streit) and the play continued to suck. The team just wasn't responding to him and that obviously continued into this season...why delay the inevitable. Homer - who is probably bordering on the hot seat himself by now - didn't need another six games to see his team go out and lay an egg every night...they got badly outshot and outplayed last night in Carolina against their backup goalie...

They have a game Tuesday (vs. Fla) and Friday (@ Phx)...not too challenging, four of their next five are at home, so there will be plenty of time for Berube to get practices in now as oppose to spending time travelling (only road games left this month are Detroit and Long Island). It just wasn't

Berube hasn't done diddly poo as a coach, but sometimes you have to take that chance if you believe in a guy. Laviolette is a smart guy, but very stubborn. Clearly outcoached in the 2012 series vs. New Jersey. Didn't adjust what he needed to adjust in 2013 and the team suffered (missed the playoffs entirely) and 2014 was heading in the same direction. Five more games probably wasn't going to change that the way the team was playing...

mikey287 wrote:This needed to happen. It was the worst kept secret around the league that Laviolette was on the shortest leash in the league coming in...many believed he should have been canned in the offseason. Players love Craig Berube, though I'm unsure what kind of coach he really is...he has 86 games of HC exp. at the AHL level, the rest of his time he was an assistant.

Flyers played some really uninspired hockey so far this year. Last night against Carolina was really lackadasical...I'm not sure I've seen a 3-game firing in the modern era before...Savard got four games in Chicago I think, we fired Hlinka after four in 2001 or 02, right? Demers only lasted four games into the season following the Roy trade back in '96...

Three games is the quickest hook in the modern era. Previous was four games for Savard, Hlinka, and Demers. Quickest from the time of hiring in the modern era is Bob Plager, who had coached 11 games with the Blues in 92-93. How do you fire a coach after a 4-6-1 record in 11 games?

Edit: It appears that Plager decided to quit after 10 games, but agreed to coach the 11th while management decided on a replacement. Plager went back to his front office job with the Blues, where he remains to this day.

Isn't his a bit of bad management? If you were going to have a guy on THIS short of a leash why not get rid of him over the summer. Now, all of training camp and preseason was under his instruction. Wouldn't it make more sense to have had a new guy in there for camp and such?

meow wrote:I'm just glad they screwed around long enough and missed the chance to possibly land Eakins.

I think Flyers fans are kind of pissed about that too, but most are happy to see Lavy go. And most dont hate him. Lavy is a good coach, but (and this is going back to teh Devlis 2012 playoff sweep) he was too stubborn to adjust his system when facing adversity. That carried over into the lockout season, and his leash shortened. I think Snider wanted to give Lavy a shot considering the lockout season screwed things up (an tbh, if they played a full season I think there were on pace to actually make the playoffs, but who knows), but as Snider said to the media a few minutes ago, it wasnt the fact that their reacord, including the preseason, is 1-8-1, it was how they looked on the ice. And they looked like utter crap. If you watched, you could see that the system wasnt working, and the players werent buying into it anymore. Thats not to say that it looks like the players played like **** to get Lavy gone, but if you mentally dont buy into it, it plays out on the ice. Lavy simply couldnt adjust, and couldnt play the style he wanted with the roster they have.

People still pointing out that they have the Mason/Emery tandem in net are missing the fact that goaltending, at least this far, hasnt been an issue at all this season. Its the complete lack of system and offensive play on the ice, as well as defensive miscues. The FLyers had a top 5 PP in the league last year, but this year they're something like 1-9 on the PP. And bad on the PK that was top 5 last year as well.

Will be interesting to see what Berube can do. Its up in the air, but people dismissing him as a simple goon ill-suited to coaching also havent been paying attention. He was HC on the AHL team for a while, before being called up to assist with the Flyers. If he can institue a more defensive, less run-and-gun offense and focus on generating a cycle, etc, they may have some success. All remans to be seen but again, dismissing cheif outright is shortsighted. One thing Flyers fans are happy about with the Lavy firing is that he's taking McCarthy with him. Ian Lapperierre and John Paddock are the new asst coaches. Most arent too thrilled about Paddock, but Lappy could be a good addition. especially with McCarthy gone.

Holmgrens leash just got a lot shorter, and Hextall is licking his chops, waiting in the wings. Even though 3 games seems humorous, Lavy had been on the hot seat for a while, and I simply think management didnt need to see any more from him to make this decision. A lot seems to be up in the air but I'd be shocked if you didnt see an instant turnaround from this team. just my opinion.

Just watched the press conf and they were VERY defensive and dodged questions and beat around the bush...

Why has this team had more coaching changes in 20 years than any other team (11 in 20 years)? - Answered for the current change and countered the rest without answering. I actually thought that press guy was pretty ballsy because he kept pushing, asking if it was just consistant mistakes on managemnt etc etc. Nice!

(Not exact quote)"The team has not won a Cup in 38 years, it is a good idea to bring in a new coach that is steeped in that tradition?""What tradition" - yep"Not winning" - ZING!!!

For anyone out there who doesn't understand the train wreck that's is Berube:

"Last season, Berube said had some outspoken comments about Penguins captain Sidney Crosby that fans should like. Here's what Berube had to say:

Let me tell you something, Crosby and Malkin are the two dirtiest players on their hockey team. They slash, they punch guys in the face. They do all these little things– I got no problem with what Schenn does. And if someone runs [Crosby] over– that’s great. They should run him over. This guy gets away with too much, in my opinion, whines to the refs all day and all night. It’s a joke. And the guy did something to Schenner a little bit earlier, so he just went at gave him a little shot. It wasn’t like it was a tough, bad cross-check. The guy dove. And I understand all that, they’re going to protect their guy, and they should."Berube was a tough guy during his playing days racking up 3,149 penalty minutes, which is good enough to put him in the top 10 all time for penalty minutes for a career.

Berube also punched a referee during a fight on the ice during his career when he was trying to punch current Dallas Stars coach Lindy Ruff. "